Chei Bres

Chei Bres is a centuries-old manor house is Cornwall. It is near the sea with 16 rooms as well as various outbuildings and a long drive. It is a major setting at two different times during the novel, the Christmas of 1977 and the Christmas of 2016, and it takes very different forms over the decades. When Sophia first arrives at Chei Bres, she dismisses it as an “illegal dirty hippy-hangover pseudo-romantic squat” (117), the latest in the string of unorthodox co-operative living arrangements that her sister Iris has found for herself. However, over the course of her stay, Sophia sees through the graffiti and birds to the beauty of the house, and when she returns home from her walk with the man who becomes her lover, she tells him that “I’ll own this house. I’m going to buy it one day” (263). This eventually comes to pass, and she...